D 613 
.U5 
1918b 
Copy 1 



D 613 



Document 



.U5 ,8 | HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES { N? 7( 

1918b 

Copy 1 



ADDRESS 



OF 



PRESIDENT WILSON 



TO THE 



CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES 



JANUARY 8, 1918 




January 8, 1918. — Ordered to be printed and referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs 




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."U 5" 

13 l£ lr 



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JAN 21 1918 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Congress: 

Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the Central 
Empires have indicated their desire to discuss the objects of the war 
and the possible bases of a general peace. Parleys have been in 
progress at Brest-Litovsk between Russian representatives and rep- 
resentatives of the Central Pcwers to which the attention of all the 
belligerents has been invited for the purpose of ascertaining whether 
it may be possible to extend these parleys into a general conference 
with regard' to terms of peace and settlement. The Russian repre- 
sentatives presented not only a perfectly definite statement of the 
principles upon which they would be willing to conclude peace but 
also an equally definite programme of the concrete application of 
those principles. The representatives of the Central Powers, on 
their part, presented an outline of settlement which, if much less 
definite, seemed susceptible of liberal interpretation until their 
specific programme of practical terms was added. That programme 
proposed no concessions at all either to the sovereignty of Russia or 
to trie preferences of the populations with whose fortunes it dealt, but 
meant, in a word, that trie Central Empires were to keep every foot 
of territory their armed forces had occupied, — every province, every 
city, every point of vantage, — as a permanent addition to their terri- 
tories and their power. It is a reasonable conjecture that the general 
principles of settlement which they at first suggested originated with 
the more liberal statesmen of Germany and Austria, the men who 
have begun to feel the force of their own peoples' thought and pur- 
pose, while the concrete terms of actual settlement came from the 
military leaders who have no thought but to keep what they have 
got. The negotiations have been broken off. The Russian repre- 
sentatives were sincere and in earnest. They can not entertain such 
proposals of conquest and domination. 

The whole incident is full of significance. It is also full of per- 
plexity. With whom are the Russian representatives dealing ? For 
whom are the representatives of the Central Empires speaking ? Are 
they speaking for the majorities of their respective parliaments or for 
the minority parties, that military and imperialistic minority which 
has so far dominated their whole policy and controlled the affairs of 
Turkey and of the Balkan states which have felt obliged to become 
their associates in this war? The Russian representatives have in- 
sisted, very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of modern 
democracy, mat the conferences they have been holding with the 
Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be held within open, not 
closed, doors, and all the world has been audience, as was desired. 
To whom have we been listening, then ? To those who speak the 
spirit and intention of the resolutions of the German Reichstag of 
the ninth of July last, the spirit and intention of the liberal leaders 



4 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, JANUARY 8, 1918. 

and parties of Germany, or to those who resist and defy that spirit and 
intention and insist upon conquest and subjugation? Or are we 
listening, in fact, to both, unreconciled and in open and hopeless con- 
tradiction ? These are very serious and pregnant quest ions. Upon 
the answer to them depends the peace of the world. 

But, whatever the results of the parleys at Brest-Litovsk, what- 
ever the confusions of counsel and of purpose in the utterances of the 
spokesmen of the Central Empires, they have again attempted to 
acquaint the world with their objects in the war and have again 
challenged their adversaries to say what their objects are and what 
sort of settlement they would deem just and satisafctory. There is 
no good reason why that challenge should not be responded to, and 
responded to with the utmost candor. We did not wait for it. Not 
once, but again and again, we have laid our whole thought and 
purpose before the world, not in general terms only, but each time 
with sufficient definition to make it clear what sort of definitive terms 
of settlement must necessarily spring out of them. Witfhin the last 
week Mr. Lloyd George has spoken with admirable candor and in 
admirable spirit for the people and Government of Great Britain. 
There is no confusion of counsel among the adversaries of the Cen- 
tral Powers, no uncertainty of principle, no vagueness of detail. The 
only secrecy of counsel, the only lack of fearless frankness, the only 
failure to make definite statement of the objects of the war, lies with 
Germany and her Allies. The issues of life and death hang upon 
these definitions. No statesman who has the least conception of his 
responsibility ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this 
tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and treasure unless he 
is sure beyond a perad venture that the objects of the vital sacrifice 
are part and parcel of the very life of Society and that the people for 
whom he speaks think them right and imperative as he does. 

There is, moreover, a voice calling for these definitions of principle 
and of purpose which is, it seems to me, more thrilling and more 
compelling than any of the many moving voices with which the 
troubled air of the world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian 
people. They are prostrate and all but helpless, it would seem, be- 
fore the grim power of Germany, which has hitherto known no re- 
lenting and no pity. Their power, apparently, is shattered. And yet 
their soul is not subservient. They will not yield either in principle 
or in action. Their conception of what is right, and what it is hu- 
mane and honorable for them to accept, has been stated with a 
frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit, and a universal 
human sympathy which must challenge the admiration of every 
friend of mankind; and they have refused to compound their ideals 
or desert others that they themselves may be safe. They call to us 
to say what it is that we desire, in what, if in anything, our purpose 
and our spirit differ from theirs ; and I believe that the people of the 
United States would wish me to respond, with utter simplicity and 
frankness. Whether their present leaders believe it or not, it is our 
heartfelt desire and hope that some way may be opened whereby we 
may be privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain their ut- 
most hope of liberty and ordered peace. 

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when 
they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve 
and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The 



ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, JANUARY 8, 1918, 5 

day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day 
of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular govern- 
ments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of 
the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every 
public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead 
and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes 
are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow now 
or at any other time the objects it has in view. 

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which 
touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impos- 
sible unless they were corrected and the world secured once for all 
against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is 
nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and 
safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace- 
loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, deter- 
mine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by 
the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. 
All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and 
for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to 
others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world's peace, 
therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible 
programme, as we see it, is this : 

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there 
shall be no private international understandings of any kind but 
diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. 

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside terri- 
torial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be 
closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforce- 
ment of international covenants. 

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and 
the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the 
nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its 
maintenance. 

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments 
will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. 

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of 
all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle 
that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests 
of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equi- 
table claims of the government whose title is to be determined. 

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement 
of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest 
cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an 
unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent 
determination of her own political development and national policy 
and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations 
under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, 
assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself 
desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the 
months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their com- 
prehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, 
and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. 

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and 
restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she 



6 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, JANUARY 8, 1018. 

enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act 
will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations 
in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the 
government of their relations with one another. Without this healing 
act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever 
impaired. 

"VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded por- 
tions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in 
the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the 
world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace 
may once more be made secure in the interest of all. 

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected 
along clearly recognizable lines of nationality. 

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the 
nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded 
the freest opportunity of autonomous development. 

XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occu- 
pied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to 
the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another 
determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of 
allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the po- 
litical and economic independence and territorial integrity of the 
several Balkan states should be entered into. 

XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should 
be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are 
now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of 
life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous devel- 
opment, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free 
passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international 
guarantees. 

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should 
include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, 
which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose 
political and economic independence and territorial integrity should 
be guaranteed by international covenant. 

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under 
specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guaranties 
of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small 
states alike. 

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions 
of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the govern- 
ments and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We 
cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand 
together until the end. 

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and 
to continue to fight until they are achieved ; but only because we wish 
the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be 
secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this 
programme does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, 
and there is nothing in this programme that impairs it. We grudge 
her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise 
such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do 
not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence 
or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with 



ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, JANUARY 8, 1918. 7 

hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate hpr«plf 
with us and the other peace-loving nations of tne wor KyS 
of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a 
place of equality anion- the peoples of the world,-tL new world 
m which we now live -instead of a place of master. 
o*ll e l Tu - we P r( ; sume to suggest to her any alteration or modifi- 
cation of her institutions. But it is necessary, we must frankry sav 
and necessary as a preliminary to any intelligent dealings with her 
on our part, that we should know whom her° spokesmen^ speak for 
when they speak to us whether for the Reichstag majority or for 

W? h v/S 7 and thG m T Wh ° se Creed is ferial J dom^natiom 

««w fl !? fe n n ° W ' SU . re1 ^ in terms too concrete to admit of 

any further doubt or question. An evident principle runs through 

he whole programme 1 have outlined. It is the principle of justice 

of nL P rtv P In7 nd A atl0n ?i ltleS ' and ^ leir ri ° ht to ^ on equal terms 
oi liberty and safety with one another, whether they be stron- or 

weak Unless this principle be made its foundation no part of the 
S r lf international justice can stand. The people of the 
United States could act upon no other principle; and to the vindi- 
cation of this principle they are ready to devote their lives their 
honor and everything that they possess. The moral climax of this 
the culminating and hnal war for human liberty has come, and they 
are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purpose, their 
own integrity and devotion to the test. P ' 



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